March Calendar Girl

Hello and welcome.

Apologies for my long absence - I've been busy sewing for a Spring craft fair so I haven't been doing much paper crafting lately.

I have managed to complete a couple of projects, so here is the first of two very quick posts, the first being my March Calendar Girl...

March 20th was the first day of spring here in the UK and I wanted to reflect this with my colour palette, so I chose yellow and green to represent the daffodils and primroses coming in to flower in my garden.

I'm still on my quest to do a bit of stash busting this year and have used a Dovecraft chip board frame, some of  my miles and miles of ribbon, a couple of random blooms and a wood veneer bird. The stamps are from Studio G.

Better start thinking about my April Girl ... hmmm

February Calendar Girl

Hello and welcome friends!

I may have been away from blogland for a little while but I have been doing some crafting!

Mostly I have been altering tags, here is my February Calendar Girl tag, and I will post my February Tim Tag later in the week.

It being February it was inevitable that my Calendar Girl would have a Valentine's Day theme, but I decided to steer away from the traditional red and pink colour palette and go for black and white with some pops of red.

If you follow my blog you are probably aware that my crafting resolution for 2014 is to use up some of my stash rather than just collecting it. I've always tended not to use things, thinking that I should save them for a "special" project, but I'm making a real effort to get past that mental block and use my goodies if they work on a particular project .

The background is a white cardstock tag  (I used the Julie Nutting doll stamp packaging as a template) covered with Echo Park Yours Truly Love Notes paper which I stamped with a Craft Stamper (CS) freebie grungy heart stamp. I then randomly rubbed white acrylic paint over the tag with my finger to push the design right into the background. The edge is inked with Black Soot DI, but this reacted with the white acrylic to create a greyish smudge so I used another CS freebie, grungy border stamp and Jet Black Archival to stamp a random border. I used a black Sharpie to soften the squared off edge of the stamp.

The doll was stamped onto Neenah white cardstock and coloured with Copic markers. I made the mistake of stamping the image with Jet Black Archival ink, and even though I dried it thoroughly the stamped image has bled slightly where the Copics have touched it. Note to self - buy a black Memento ink pad!

Her dress is paper pieced from a Papermania 6x6 paper stack. I chose papers with the same design but with the colours reversed to emphasis the frill on her skirt. I used a coat of matte medium to seal her dress and then added shading with a black Pitt Big Brush pen. Some tiny red gems completed her outfit.

The gem swirl was made using a Bazzills InStitch'z template and some black Papermania Gems.

The heart border at the bottom is some decorative tape which I bought on-line thinking it was washi tape - It is actually a fairly glossy adhesive tape but it looks OK here. The LOVE bingo card is a Kaisercraft Miss Match stamp, stamped on white cardstock. The gorgeous red velvet rose is a Making Memories Vintage Hip Finding (a mega bargain from TKMaxx - I got 4 sets of these (two roses and three vintage style buttons) for about £3!) The black acetate flourish and heart are K&Co Elegance Die Cuts. I am using October Afternoon's Remember When calendar stamps for all my Calendar Girls, as each month is written in a different font, which I thought would add a bit of interest to the tags. February is stamped on a Memory Box Bistro Label die cut which has black inked edges.  You can see from the supplies I've used that some of this stuff has been in my stash for years - at last it is getting an airing!

Thank you for taking the time to visit - happy crafting!

January Calendar Girls

Hello crafting friends and thank you for visiting.

I recently did an " In the spotlight" interview over at Our Creative Corner (OCC) (it's here if you want to read it), one of the questions was, "If you have lost your Mojo, how do you go about getting it back?"  Well, to be honest my Mojo went AWOL at Christmas and I've been in a bit of a crafting doldrums ever since. So, true to my interview response I've been looking around for sources of inspiration - and sometimes you get inspiration when you least expect it! - I recently picked up a copy of Creative Stamping magazine (mainly because I was drawn to the knife, fork and spoon freebie stamps - sad - but true!) A quick flick through the mag left me a bit disappointed - but then I'm not really a card maker - until I came across an article from the DT at Ali-Craft showcasing the Prima doll stamps - and then... Ding! - a light bulb moment and my personal 2014 challenge was born.

I am setting myself a "calendar girls" challenge - no silly, not the naked WI with strategic cakes style Calendar Girls, but a monthly themed tag featuring the Prima doll stamps  (or stamp singular - in my case!) I have also made the resolution to make a mega effort to use up some of my stash, so the current challenge over at OCC is perfect to get my newly returned Mojo back in working order!

The challenge is "No more shopping sins" (click on the link for details) and is an opportunity to use up some of the stash that's gathering dust in forgotten boxes and to confess your stash shopping sins and make a clean start in 2014.

So here is my January Calendar Girls tag...

I chose cold colours and a snowy theme to reflect the chilly weather we can have here in the UK in January.

It was fun pulling together various different stamps to make my cluster of embellishments - and of course I have unearthed some I'd forgotten I'd got!

So - to confess my stash shopping sins - I am a terrible sucker for a "bargain" - if it is vastly reduced in a sale bin and I think I may have a use for it at some point it will - almost inevitably - end up in my shopping basket!

Case in point with this tag - the self adhesive fabric ribbon and co-ordinating brad were in a sale of Dovecraft Christmas lines three or four years ago and have not been out of the packet until today.

Talking of ribbon - I just LOVE printed grosgrain ribbon - can't resist a pretty ribbon - OMG I'm SUCH a girl!

The Papermania ticket stamps were reduced to £2 in my local craft shop, the clock stamp was a freebie on a Creativity Magazine - can't resist a "freebie"!

The snowflake rub-ons (part of a set of glitter snowmen) were in a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offer at The Works, again three or four years ago.

I must also confess that the Cuttlebug Swiss dots embossing folder had its maiden voyage in the making of this tag - and I've had that for donkey's!

Then there's the patterned paper - you know how that calls to you from the racks in the craft shop... so I'm pleased to be able to say that I have CUT INTO FOUR - that's FOUR, people, - different pieces of patterned paper from FOUR different stacks in the making of this project! (I needed a lie down with a cold compress afterwards mind you!)

Those of you who know your way around Julie Nutting's doll stamps for Prima will know that this is NOT one of Julie's designs. I had great fun (which really took me back to my childhood!) designing and making suitably warm attire for my January Girl.

I started by stamping the doll stamp (Doll No.2) on to white Neenah cardstock, loosely cut out my image and coloured in the face and neck with Copic markers.

I then stamped the image again on to copier paper and drew my "warm clothes" design over the top of the original image. 

I cut the pattern pieces out and used them as a template for making the finished clothes from patterned paper.

The new clothes were then glued over the top of the original stamped image and details such as creases and buttons were added with a fine black Pitt artists pen. A coat of matte medium made the surface of the finished doll non-porous and allowed me to add shading with Pitt Big Brush india ink markers.

                                                                                                                                                                

The final touch was to add a generous coat of Dimensional Magic (Glossy Accents equivalent) to the spotty wellies to give them a lovely "bang on trend" shine. Oh yes and those are supposed to be fluffy earmuffs - in case you were wondering :0)

So there you have it - my sins confessed and my project completed - and a head full of inspiration for February's tag too...

Wow - that was a long post - thanks for sticking with me - let me know you came and I'll try and catch up with you soon.

Hugs

WOYWW #222

Hello and welcome back - sorry I couldn't play last week, our router failed and we were internet-less for nearly a week. Tell you something Peeps - you don't realise how much you rely on it until you can't get it!

Anyhoo, the reason you're here is to see what is on my workdesk this "Back to School" Wednesday...

Here is a shot taken from my chair - I don't think I've taken one from here before so it gives a slightly different perspective...

So what can we see today?

My Ikea cubbies which contain, top left to right, my stereo system - can't be without music while I'm creating, a cupboard full of paperwork for work, a plethora of tiny Really Useful Boxes full of beads and you can see in the corner (click on the photo for a closer look) a blue tikki birdhouse pincushion which I made for a WI competition, the far right cubby has yet more beads. Second row, two cubbies of craft books and behind the sewing machine my Molly Blooms stamps and finally a big box of flowers.

To the right of the owls is a handy TKMaxx shelf unit with my collection of Douwe Egberts coffee jars,  I mean, buttons, and below the owls is my Craft Robo and a felt bowl with yet more buttons in (bit of a thing for buttons - can you tell?)

Left to right on my desk are my buckets of pens, tools, glue and stuff, assorted pincushions and my jug for washing paint brushes, on my craft mat is my Dylusions art journal - more on that later, and in front of the iron is the dictionary I am altering for The Craft Barn's Dictionary Challenge. I've been asked a couple of times if I can still close the book - well now you can see - yes I can - at the moment - but by the end of the challenge? Who knows!

The strange looking pack of fluff with a pink and green ball (front right) is another early birthday prezzie from my lovely Mum and is a pincushion kit which looks soooo cute!

See what I mean!

I don't know when I'm going to find time to do sewing for pleasure rather than work  - but I promise I'll post pics when it's finished.

If you're in a WOYWW hurry that's all I've got for this week so thanks for popping in and I hope to catch up with you later, but if you're interested in the Julie Nutting Doll project more pics follow...


You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was playing with a Julie Nutting Doll stamp and having a go at an (un-tutored) She Art style layout in my AJ. Well here is the page so far - I can't say that it is finished because I'm not totally happy with it - but I've hit a block so I'm letting it "rest" until inspiration strikes again.

Stamping the flourishes over the girl helped to ground her on the page, whilst the doodle edging gives her some definition.

This is actually the second incarnation of this page which started off looking a lot like this...

The first attempt was gesso-ed over and then begun again with layers of  ink or acrylic paint through at least four stencils, bubble wrap acrylic paint stamping and at least 17 different stamped images.  As I said, I'm not entirely happy with her yet, whether the page is too blue, whether she's too small on the A4 page - I'm not sure - but I'll come back to her and hope for the best.

Thank you for visiting, please do leave a comment so that I know you came and I can reciprocate.

WOYWW #219

Hello fellow Deskers! And if you're not a Desker - you're missing out - go over to Julia's and get involved - go on, you'll love it!

(Apologies for the weird lighting today - it is a GORGEOUS morning here in sunny Staffordshire (Note to Self: must put some washing in) so I've had to close the blinds or else all you'd see would be glare.)

Today I am mainly playing nice with a Julie Nutting (for Prima) Doll Stamp. I've got a couple of unfinished journal pages which I'm planning on giving a She Art style look so I'm playing at paper piecing a She to be the focal image of my Art. I love the look of text pages for faces (I really like how it worked with my Gorjuss girl mixed media angel here) so I'm seeing how that works with this stamp.

You know the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention"? Well... I thought I would have had an acrylic block big enough for the Doll Stamp amongst my vast selection of acrylic blocks but, incredibly, I didn't - sooo... I took the liner tray out of the tin I use for storing my Pitt Artist pens flat, turned it over ...

...and Bob's your uncle - THEEEE cutest stamping block ever!

Also on my desk today is my Tim Tags prize which arrived yesterday. The prize was a $25 credit to spend at one of Tim's sponsor's stores, so I chose Journeyman Tissue Tape, Traveller Tissue Tape, Idea-ology Word Bands and a Prima stamp. Thank you Tim! Oh I do love happy mail!

Whilst I remember - a couple of my lovely WOYWW visitors last week asked for a tutorial on the Faux Batik (resist) technique I featured in my post. Part 1 of the tutorial can be found here, a second post about the evolution of the journal page I was working on can be found here and Part 2 of the tutorial will appear as my next post - coming soon. (here)

Thanks for visiting